It may seem strange to talk about the "economy" of forgiveness but it is proper from several different perspectives.
For one thing, it is hard to forgive others if you have been denied forgiveness. It is like the economy of money where we give money away to get goods and services in return. Suppose you worked for a carpenter. You don't get paid if the carpenter's client doesn't pay him. And since you don't have money, you cannot pay the baker for the bread your family needs. The system locks up.
Even the money that you think is standing still is moving. Money that folks put into savings is loaned back out so people can buy houses, start businesses, send kids to college.
The secular culture treats "injustice" like wealth. Narratives are respun and framed to make clear oppressors and victims. The victims are then assigned rage-credits. Forgiving others is the equivalent of throwing money away. It simply isn't done. Those rage-credits are to be hoarded and clawed-back and reused.
Not oppressed? No problem. You can find some extinct peoples who were oppressed centuries ago and you can be enraged on their behalf. Don't like people very much? You can still become enraged on behalf of extinct species.
So rage is like money in a piggy-bank or the electricity in battery. The problem is that rage is as corrosive as battery acid. It damages the person carrying it more than it hurts the target of the rage.
The other reason it makes sense to frame forgiveness in terms of an economy is that "eco" is the Anglization of the Greek word Oikos or οίκος which means "HOME". Homes are where we are constantly in intimate contact with people who really know how to push our buttons. It is where the oportunity for abrasions is ever-present.
Forgiveness is the only thing that makes a home tolerable.
Best advice I ever was given as a young man (from one of the toughest most demanding SOBs I have ever worked for):
ReplyDeleteNEVER BE A VICTIM ! ! !
ERJ - You are certainly on a role with this, my friend, and have given me a great deal to think about.
ReplyDeleteIt is odd - our culture claims in principle to believe in forgiveness, but does not seem to practice it at all, and that lack of practice seems to have crept its way into the church. Your concept of "rage credits" is precisely on the mark; one is reminded of the original Star Trek Episode where an otherwise peaceful society is allowed a "rage" period every so often by the controlling power - a supercomputer - to funnel tensions.
I forget where I read this, but the concept was that anything that is started with evil or bad intentions eventually will collapse in the end as, after it has destroyed all of its perceived opponents or enemies, it will turn on itself.
I wonder if - based on the idea of "home" being the place where we have to practice forgiveness on a daily basis - one of the reasons we are seeing less forgiveness is simply because there is less practice. For various and sundry reasons, it often feels (to me, anyway), like the modern "home" is a place where we go when we are not out living our "real" life.
Forgiveness inside the home should be easier than outside the home.
ReplyDeleteForgiveness is hard. But so necessary.
"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." Matthew 6:14 (NASB 1995)
It is also difficult to recall we are admonished to forgive seventy times 7, especially when we are more inclined to grudgingly forgive just once.
ReplyDeleteI will cite Jesus' instructions.
ReplyDeleteRebuke.
If they repent, then forgive.
Folks forget steps 1 and 2.
Rebuking is hard to do.
Repenting is easier than rebuking.
Forgiving a repentant sinner is easy.
But Jesus never said we should forgive without them repenting.
Practice rebuking so the sinner has a chance to improve.